


Been There

by ghostofshe



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Angst, Death, Gen, Ghouls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-13 05:42:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9109066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostofshe/pseuds/ghostofshe
Summary: Decades after the Courier is ghoulified, she and ED-E mourn the passing of their friends





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a Tumblr prompt

The sun is just pouring its first rays of light over the edge of the horizon as Six heads up to the cemetery, arms weighed down with broc flowers and stalks of lavender she gathered the day before. Nobody in town is out yet, and aside from the soft rustle of the wind the only sound she can hear as she shuffles up the road is the squeaking of the saloon’s sign as it sways back and forth on its rusted chain. **  
**

She should have been there, she thinks. The same thought that’s gone through her mind every time she’s done this. Every time she makes her short pilgrimage up the street, she can think of nothing else. Should have been there. Never was.

When her hair first started to fall out and her skin began to pull away from her bones, withering like the bark of a long-dead tree, she had laughed about it. They all laughed about it together, nobody was worried. It wasn’t until Raul nudged her and lightly mentioned that she might even outlive him now, that she had even thought about worrying. It had never been in her nature to fret about things that were a long way off from ever happening, but once the thought entered her mind, it stuck around.

It didn’t take many years before the thought become overwhelming, a continuous, spiteful reminder in the back of her head as she began to notice the slightest signs of age in the people around her. She could see it in Arcade’s crow’s feet, the increased slump to his posture, and in Veronica’s smile lines. Heard it, in the roughness of Cass’s voice and the way she would cough for a little too long. Six felt like a stone amongst flowers, remaining stagnant while everything else bloomed and died around her. It was easier to handle if she closed her eyes and pretended she was alone, so she focused all her efforts on running Vegas. Maybe everyone she ever loved would die before her, but Vegas could last forever.

And so she wasn’t there. It was only days after she’d begun her withdrawal from the world when Yes Man alerted her over the Penthouse intercom that one of the lifesigns in the Presidential Suite disappeared without anyone having left the building. Though she didn’t want to believe it, she knew from the turn of her stomach that it was Boone.

The rest passed slower, and though she wanted to be detached, wanted to be uninvolved and unconcerned with others as Mr. House had been, she took it upon herself to keep track of them all, to read up on the where and the why and arrange for each of them to be buried in the Goodsprings Cemetery. She wondered if they hated her in the end.

ED-E chirps reassuringly, shaking Six from her stream of thoughts. She reaches up and pats the side of him gently. “I know,” she murmurs, the rusted hull feeling coarse beneath her shrivelled fingertips. He beeps more quietly in response, then goes quiet as she begins to walk again.

Reaching the top of the slope at last, she looks out across the graves, completely still but for a tumbleweed caught in the fence, shivering with the breeze. Today marks the eleventh time she’s done this, eleven years since the last of her friends died and she finally stepped out of the Lucky 38 to say a proper goodbye. She takes small steps down the path, stopping before each grave to leave two flowers, one lavender and one broc flower. “I’m sorry,” she says to each of them, reading out the names on the crosses, imagining their faces as they had been when she knew them. “I’m sorry.”

As she stands over the last grave, ED-E begins to trill quietly from behind her. He bumps into the back of her head with a loud clank.  
  
“Don’t worry,” she assures him, “I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.” He bumps her again, beeping sadly. “I promise.”.  
  
Then the beeping is overtaken by another sound. Static, and a voice. A voice she recognizes almost instantly as Arcade’s.  
  
_“Uh, hello? Hi… This is a message for Courier Six. Six if you’re listening to this, then uh.. ahem. Anyway, I promised everyone here that I’d upload some audio files onto ED-E’s hard drive…”_ there’s more static, and Six grabs the robot with both hands and holds him as close to her face as she can, listening intently. _“-not sure I ever thanked you properly. Anyway, everyone else has something to say too so-”_  
  
Six sinks to the ground, legs folded and hugs ED-E in her arms as the recording fizzes and then continues on. _“Six,”_ her heart stutters at the new voice. It’s Veronica’s. _“I really hope you get this…”_  

She blinks back tears and squeezes ED-E tighter, pressing her head against his speaker, he chirps quietly in response.   
  
_“…Mostly I just wanted to say, I’m really glad I met you Six. I’m sure we’ll see each other again someday, but… I miss you. Still have the dress you got me, you know, not to brag but would you believe it still fits?…”_  
  
Six closes her eyes as the recording plays on, imagining, with crystal clarity, that her friends are beside her again. Come to say their goodbyes to her now, since she wasn’t there to say goodbye them.


End file.
